The guide to international SMS marketing

According to Klaviyo’s Future of Consumer Marketing report, consumers around the world now primarily use mobile devices for B2C shopping.

That makes targeted SMS marketing—natively mobile and incredibly direct—one of the most powerful ways to connect with customers. It’s not only quick, it delivers real results.

Klaviyo’s SMS research with Recharge shows that:

• Globally, 72% of consumers have made a purchase after receiving a text from a brand.

• Globally, 72% of consumers are open to receiving at least one SMS per week from brands.

• In Europe, 46% of people are willing to receive a text more than once a week from their favourite brands

Regional differences in expectations, highlighted in Klaviyo’s SMS marketing research with Recharge, prove that one-size-fits-all campaigns won’t work—and with SMS, you can tailor your marketing to those differences.

• In North America, 30% of consumers say SMS is their favourite way to hear from brands. They prefer regular promotional messages and are generally more open to frequent communication.

• In Europe, shoppers are even more engaged: 46% subscribe to four or more brands’ SMS lists, and almost a quarter have made a purchase via text four or five times in the past year—more than in any other region.

• Asia-Pacific (APAC) consumers love deals, but not too many texts. While 66% say discounts are what they value most, many prefer just one message a week.

To make sure your SMS sign-up forms and processes are built for global scale, follow these best practices:

• Simplify the sign-up process. Keep your sign-up forms short and easy to complete, and test how many fields you use. For some brands and use cases, more fields work well, while for others, fewer is better.

• Offer clear opt-in information and calls to action (CTAs). Build trust by being transparent about what subscribers are signing up for and how often—whether it’s exclusive offers, product alerts, or transactional texts such as order updates.

• Create multilingual sign-up forms and consent copy. Maximise global engagement and maintain compliance with sign-up forms and consent messaging in multiple languages.

• Focus on mobile-first design. Since most users will sign up via mobile, your forms must be responsive and load quickly. Design pop-ups and banners with a mobile-first mindset.

• Localise sign-up forms. Use Klaviyo to customise sign-up forms by location for more relevant messaging.

• Time your sign-up forms right. Klaviyo’s AI-powered forms display optimisation tests different display timings to determine the most effective option for sign-up forms. Once it identifies the best time, your sign-up form automatically updates and goes live, ensuring your audience sees it at the right moment.

• Check consent status. Check that someone has opted in before sending SMS messages (or ideally, use a tool that does this for you). With Klaviyo, you can easily check consent status within someone’s profile—so you only contact those who have given permission.

Capturing SMS sign-ups on a global scale means meeting your audience wherever they are—both physically and digitally.

For example, displaying in-store QR codes at the point of sale or adding them to receipts or packaging lets customers subscribe in seconds using just their phones, helping to bridge online and offline experiences.

And don’t forget to make use of other channels where people may not know about your SMS programme. Share social media promotions, such as giveaways for those who subscribe to SMS, or share links from Instagram Stories to your SMS sign-up form.

With a platform like Klaviyo B2C CRM that offers built-in SMS compliance, you can scale your global SMS marketing efforts with greater confidence. Klaviyo supports SMS in more than 19 countries with a range of built-in compliance and localisation features, including:

• Quiet-hours enforcement based on time zone

• Region-specific SMS sign-up forms with built-in consent wording

• Default settings that automatically add opt-out wording or links based on each country

• Age-gating features for restricted industries in multiple countries

• Consent rules tailored to each country (including double opt-in)

You need someone’s consent to send them both marketing texts and transactional messages. But treating them the same can limit your messaging strategy.

Klaviyo makes it simple: you can collect and manage transactional consent separately, ensuring subscribers only receive what they signed up for—while you remain compliant worldwide.

Making sure your messages actually reach your subscribers across borders can be tricky when you factor in varying regulations, carrier rules, and regional spam filters.

Klaviyo’s SMS deliverability hub comes with real-time insights—such as deliverability rates across regions and campaigns—and identifies deliverability issues to help you adapt your strategy, improve performance, and maintain a strong sender reputation in every market.

Collect language preferences so you can localise SMS messages, send messages in subscribers’ native language, and use regional references that feel natural.

With Klaviyo, you can automatically trigger region-specific SMS flows based on a customer’s location, so they receive content—including product recommendations and relevant privacy policies—that actually makes sense to them.

It’s worth noting that character limits can also vary across languages. While SMS messages typically allow for 160 characters, special characters or non-Latin letters—like those in Japanese or Arabic—can reduce that limit.

And localisation goes beyond language. It’s also about sending at the right moment. With Klaviyo’s Smart Send Time, you can schedule messages by time zone to ensure they arrive when people are most likely to engage.

Global audiences don’t behave the same way, and neither should your SMS messages. Segmentation is key to driving engagement at scale.

Klaviyo makes it easy to segment customers by country or region, then layer on deeper behavioural and preference-based filters to tailor messages even further. These SMS segments can help you to better personalise your messages:

• Engagement levels

• VIP status

• Marketing preferences (such as product or sale-only alerts)

• Product collections, hobbies, and interests

• Channel preferences

The best way to avoid mismatched marketing campaigns? A unified platform that synchronises all channels—from social media to email and SMS—to create a cohesive customer experience across every channel.

With an advanced multi-channel marketing automation platform, you can:

• Create and manage marketing messages across different channels, while also mapping customer journeys.

• Manage SMS messaging, promotions, and branding alongside your email and social media campaigns.

• Track customer interactions across all touchpoints and ensure accurate attribution of conversions to gain a clearer view of how each channel is driving performance.

Leveraging web and social channels alongside your global SMS campaigns creates a powerful, integrated strategy: think social media adverts promoting sign-ups with SMS subscribe links, or website pop-ups and welcome flows tailored to a specific acquisition source.

Using these channels together amplifies your reach and relevance, and provides customers with a more cohesive experience wherever they engage with your brand.

Fashion brand DECJUBA, for example, uses Klaviyo for email, SMS, and Meta remarketing. Their omnichannel marketing strategy targets customers who haven’t responded to email with follow-up SMS, while using Klaviyo’s Meta Ads integration to build lookalike audiences from engaged segments. The results speak for themselves: 20% growth in SMS subscribers and a 19% YoY lift in SMS campaign placed-order rate in 2024.

“With Klaviyo, we can create specific segments, target campaigns like weekly newsletters, and personalise automated flows,” says Rachael Albicini, digital marketing manager at DECJUBA.

Key SMS marketing metrics like click rates, conversion rates, revenue per recipient (RPR), delivery rates, and unsubscribe rates will vary significantly across regions.

That’s because not all markets respond to texts in the same way. A regional performance analysis—which involves examining key metrics across regions—helps you pinpoint exactly where you should adjust your global SMS strategy.

When you uncover local preferences and behaviours, you can adjust messaging strategies—whether it’s timing, frequency, or the types of promotions you use—to better resonate with each audience. For example, if you find that unsubscribe rates are higher in certain regions, consider revising your SMS content or messaging frequency.